Gossip is good - most of the time

Gossip, when it’s not too nasty, has its good side; It helps us discern moral standards, bond with others and acquire information outside of official channels

Those of us who ply our trade in the news media are, in many ways, glorified gossips. Journalists exemplify the best and worst of gossip, the casual stories about other people, which are typically unflattering and often so fascinating. A recent study cited in Psychology Today showed most adults spend two hours a day talking about people who aren’t there.

Gossip, like sex, can feel delicious because it skirts the edges of moral acceptability. Gossip, in some ways, is the stuff of life. The best news stories often start out as vague tips — as whispered rumour about so-called important people, suggesting corruption or immorality. In journalism, gossip, once verified, can bring down the mighty — politicians, corporate heads, athletes and entertainment celebrities, often for valid reasons.

However, I should caution (and I suspect readers won’t find this too hard to believe) some of us journalists can on occasion be quite nasty. Like many, we can revel too much in negative, unsubstantiated tales about others. Journalists engage in gossip for the same reason as other people; because it provides a sense of belonging and connectedness, to colleagues and the wider world. It can also lead us to feel morally superior.

Gossip is a double-edged habit. It’s not hard to see why it’s long been considered bad. Roundly condemned in the Bible and in ancient philosophy, malicious gossip, hearsay, led to the untimely deaths of both Jesus and Socrates, the Greek thinker.

If you define gossip as spreading derogatory, unconfirmed information about someone, clearly that is unfair and dangerous. And if you have any doubt whether gossip still has implications, note that four women were fired this year for discussing a rumour that the top official in the town of Hooksett, New Hampshire, was having an extramarital affair with a municipal employee.

It’s a media phenomenon that Ryerson School of Journalism professor Suanne Kelman says is escalating because focus groups show women between the ages of 25 and 45, society’s prime consumers, become upset by serious news stories about war, poverty and conflict. They’re more drawn to celebrity “news.”

However, without ignoring the downside of personal and media gossip, a few words could be said about how informally talking about other peoples’ lives serves some useful functions. Even when Canada’s national Catholic Register in August did a cover story on the dangers of gossip, it quoted a priest suggesting too many come to confession overly worried they may be gossips.

It’s worth discerning the difference between destructive and beneficial gossip, especially in an age of blogging and Facebook — when personal stories about people can spread instantaneously.

Gossip is “an intrinsically valuable activity,” philosophy professor Aaron Ben-Ze’ev argues in a book he has edited, entitled Good Gossip.

For one thing, gossip helps us discern moral standards. It helps us bond with others. And it also helps us acquire information we need to know, which doesn’t come through ordinary channels, such as: “What was the real reason so-and-so was fired from the office?”

The initially murky tip in 2003 about the drunk-driving arrest in Hawaii of B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell eventually introduced voters to the inner life of arguably the most powerful man in the province, and made him examine his own use of alcohol.

And the world would have been done a great service if early gossip about infamous former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover (left) having a 40-year sexual relationship with his right-hand man had been made public earlier. Hypocritical Hoover would not have had the opportunity to ruin the lives of countless American reformers, including by publicizing revelations about their sex habits.

Ronald De Sousa, a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, says the knowledge spread by gossip usually ends up being beneficial, even if only slightly so. “It seems likely that a world in which all information were universally available would be preferable to a world where immense power resides in the control of secrets,” he writes.

These observers recognize gossip helps humans explore the ecstasy and betrayals of life and relationships. It’s a practice stereotypically associated with women. And there might be a bit of truth to it.

According to a recent Oxford University study, gossip accounts for 55 per cent of men’s conversations and 67 per cent of women’s. Gossip can be ethical, too, if done within limits.

Even though I may engage in as much gossip as other people, like most journalists I also know how to keep a confidence. And I like to think I respect the people about whom I’m talking.

Maybe the rightness or wrongness of gossip should be judged on the intentions we bring to it. The word gossip comes from godsipp, an Old English term which literally means “a person related to one in God.” Metaphorically, that’s not a bad place from which to share stories about others — to speak about them as kin.

Good gossip, as opposed to the vicious kind, requires a sense of discretion.

You do not want to become known as the person who carelessly judges others based on canards. We need balance in our gossip. Limitations. If you find yourself compulsively eager to dig into the private lives of others, especially celebrities, it may be time for some inner examination. Obsessive gossiping could represent the mutterings of the powerless, an insecure person’s attempt to try to regain some semblance of control over his or her own existence.

So what would be the antidote to turning into a truly destructive gossip monger? Getting a life.

• Graphic/Diagram: The Ethics of Gossiping, Emrys Westacott, Alfred University

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